David Farrar: 2023 campaign spending per vote

The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I've put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote.

National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost half that of labour. It's a reminder that money can't sell a bad product.

The left want to force taxpayers to fund political parties so go on about the impact of money on politics. But the empirical evidence is that the correlation between how much you spend and how many votes you get is very very weak.

Sure more money is better than less money. Just as more volunteers are better than fewer. And more members are better than fewer etc. But none are as important as a party's leadership, brand and policies.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.